


William the Browncoat

by CookieDoughMe



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly
Genre: Gen, but to be honest it might not be for a while, hopefully there will be a third chapter for this at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-07-18 03:42:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7298047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike meets the crew of a firefly-class ship named Serenity. Buffyverse timeline is long after Angel Season 5 and Firefly timeline is some time after “Objects in Space”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reputation

In all the many iterations of his unnaturally long life, he’d never thought he'd be a soldier. Never expected to see the earth from space either, mind. But then, the earth got too crowded and he found himself on his way to a new galaxy, a new wild west. Figured he'd find himself a spot on a shady little planet, try out the quiet life. That had worked for a while, but then his new planet got crowded too and he found himself back in the world of men.

And found they were messing it up again, just like always. He knew it was coming and he could see how it would end, but when the War of Independence began and he looked at the choice between the controlled safety the Alliance offered, or the freedom The Browncoats fought for, well; there was only one choice he was ever going to make in that situation.  
So he volunteered. Things wouldn't go so well for him if the Alliance took over everything, afterall. Because he knew; they might call it something else and they might have a different justification for it, but if they got their hands on him he'd soon find himself in another gleaming white and glass cell, drugs dispensed from the ceiling while they studied him and designed a chip to stick in his head. Well, once was enough, thank you very much, and this time there was no Slayer and her Watcher around to help him out afterwards. 

So he joined the Independents, fought with them in a harsh and bloody war they were always going to lose. When it was over, he followed what was left of his platoon into business on one of the outer planets. He did the grunt work, left the thinking to the others. He'd done enough thinking to last a while. But he couldn’t stay with them forever; they were starting to get old, and sooner or later they would ask questions he didn’t want to answer. 

So he sold up, moved on. Found a place where no one knew his name; it seemed to suit him. He slept through the days and at night he sat alone in the bar, drinking whisky that claimed to be bourbon but tasted like scotch, as he listened to the arguments going on around him; the same as any bar, anywhere, any time.  
At first the conversation washed over him like a breeze and he ignored the details. But he should have known he couldn't ignore the world forever. He should have known that sooner or later, he would find himself caring again. The law enforcement on this little planet was patchy at best and there were enough conversations in that bar about injustices and unrighted wrongs that eventually one of them stuck.

It was about a girl (of course). Fifteen years old and attacked in the street. Raised on books and good manners, she didn't know how to fight. A crowd of men took advantage of that, had their fun with her. Everyone knew who they were, the conversation said, but no one had the power to punish them. It was such a shame, they said; she was such a beauty and she'd had such a promising future, now she was afraid to even go outside. Even her name was full of promise; Dawn. It was so sad nothing could be done, especially when everyone knew who had done it.

“Who?” he heard himself ask, barely turning around from his drink. “Who are they?”  
He wasn't sure anyone had heard him, but the barman answered, told him their names. Told him they would be easy to find. They next night he went looking for them. The night after that the stories in the bar had a different tone - surprise and amazement and awe at how every one of those men had been found in the street with their necks broken.

He shouldn't have killed them, he knew. He could have just … but then they would have done it again, eventually. They'd told him as much. He hadn’t been able to let it go.

The night after that there was a hush around him. People knew what he'd done. They were afraid of him, but they were grateful too.

And so people became very careful of the stories they told within earshot of his spot at the end of the bar. And when they did talk of injustices there, and he looked at the barman to fill in the details, well then the perpetrators of that injustice rarely stood a chance. 

He started to acquire a nickname, but he couldn't let it stand, not that. His army buddies had known him as Will, but that didn't seem right either. “I'm not a bloody angel,” he said to the barman one night. “Call me Spike, if you have to call me something.” 

And so his old name acquired a new reputation. He listened to the conversations in the bar and the barman filled in the details. Sometimes people came to him with their stories. Sat next to him and talked to the bar as he drank. He did what he thought was right; did what he could. Sometimes he even felt like he made a difference through the stories passed on in that bar. 

And that was how he heard about Niska.

It was relatively minor things at first; retributions taken against previously loyal employees, long-held grudges against rivals finally enacted. And Niska was a man well protected, by position, location, and employees who did not want to be thought of as previously loyal.  
So at first he dismissed thoughts of Niska. But the stories piled up. More and more of them, worse and worse tales, more and more unreasonable actions against less and less guilty people. Then he heard about a family, a wedding-turned-massacre because the father of the groom had worked with the wrong people. 

Spike understood why people in Niska’s line of business were harsh with those who crossed them. He knew the impact of reputation afterall. But there was a line, and it seemed Niska had crossed it long ago. So Spike broke with long habit to turn around on his barstool and ask questions of the people who talked. He asked questions about Niska and grew to like the man less and less. So he asked about the people Niska had crossed, or those who had crossed him.

And that was how he heard about Malcolm Reynolds.


	2. Effulgence

Spike sat at another bar and swore under his breath. It was Unification Day and that was usually reason enough to stay away from any kind of bar, let alone ones like this that celebrated it. But apparently Malcolm Reynolds had some business to do here today and Spike was planning to introduce himself. So he sat with his back to the wall and watched the room. Customers sat dotted around, in twos and threes or alone. At a long table in the far corner a group of local men drank and laughed, voices raised by beer sold at a discount in honour of the date.

It was just another rundown bar on another rundown planet; all different, and all the same.

So his gaze settled on the two people who looked out of place. Two young women at a table by the opposite wall, one of them only a teenager by the look of her; a slip of a girl in a long purple dress and immaculate blue silk jacket, more colourful and graceful than anything else in the room. And a woman not that much older, with a smear of engine grease on her forehead and old work trousers patched together with flowers and teddy bears.

Spike watched them, trying to place what they were doing here. Even with the check-your-weapons-at-the-door policy, they might have been nervous in a place like this, surrounded by men and cheap beer, but they weren’t. They were acting like they were just chatting, but they weren’t doing that either. They were watching the room, just like him - waiting. The girl in particular was primed for something, he could see it in the way she held her head, her shoulders. He could almost smell the anticipation on her.

Two of the locals from the table in the corner glanced at them on their way to the bar for more drinks. But Spike’s attention was taken by three newcomers; a guy in a long brown coat, who walked just a little ahead of a beautiful black woman and a slightly anonymous-looking guy whose job description must surely read “hired muscle”. 

Presumably this was Malcolm Reynolds, which meant the woman must be his second in command; the corporal who had served under him in the war. They all looked ready for action and he felt sure that none of them had liked leaving their weapons outside. As they spoke to the locals at the bar, Spike did his best to watch without looking like he was watching, and to hear what was being said without looking like he was listening. 

“You’re a day late.”

“Yeah, well like I said, we had some complications. Got what you wanted though.”

Reynolds handed over a package, and got a bag in return. Business transacted Spike thought, until Reynolds looked at what he'd been given.

“This isn't what we agreed,” he said carefully. 

“Yeah well, like I said, you're a day late. And we factored in a discount in honour of the date and all,” replied the guy, grinning.

Reynolds swore under his breath in Mandarin. 

“What?” replied the guy in mock surprise. “Aren't you going to help us celebrate?”

“I think you know me better than that.”

Hands twitched towards where guns would have been and everyone stood a little taller. Even from his position of half-watching from the other end of the bar, Spike could tell this was turning into a fight. From his vantage point on the edge of things, he saw one of the locals reach towards what must be some kind of knife hidden in the back of his jacket. The Serenity crew wouldn't be able to see it coming from where they stood. 

Spike started to get up, to go and relieve the guy of the knife before it did any damage. But before he had even really moved, the girl from the table by the wall was already there, stood on tiptoes to whisper in the guy's ear. He turned pale and carefully handed the knife to her, handle first. 

That was quick, thought Spike, impossibly quick. And then he looked again and realised she couldn't have even seen his back from where she was sat. How did she even know? And what could she possibly have said to him? He didn't look like the kind of man used to handing his weapons over to anyone, let alone fragile looking girls half his size. But something about the way she stood and looked at him told Spike it would have been a fairly painful mistake for him if he'd chosen differently. 

Who is that girl? Spike wondered.

He was so busy pondering her place in it all, that he almost didn't see the rest of the locals moving towards her from the table in the corner. They'd seen her take the knife and now they had come to take it back. She saw them coming well enough though, and adjusted her grip on the handle. It wasn't a long knife, not really, and there were now five men squaring up to her, but she didn't look worried. 

One stepped towards her and she stretched forward easily to slash him across the chest with the point of the knife. A long cut, but not deep, a red gash across his front; just enough to slow him down. As she pulled her arm away from him she brought the knife back so the handle struck the guy behind her in the forehead and he stumbled. With no pause for breath or to even check where the others were, she brought her elbow to meet a stomach as she spun to connect her foot with an ear. Before she was even stood back on two feet again, she threw the knife with barely a glance. It landed in the leg of the fifth guy on his way towards the door (and their weapons) and he collapsed on the floor. 

She'd dispatched all of them without even breaking a sweat and Spike still hadn't made it off the bar stool. He was frozen, fascinated; she had neutralised all of them and it had taken hardly any time at all. They hadn't seen it coming from her; she was barely more than a child; just a girl. She moved like a dancer, a dancer with some very specific training, or even a ... well. Spike hadn't seen anyone fight like that for a very long time.

The guy who'd done most of the talking was starting to recover from the knife-handle to the forehead, but as he regained his balance and straightened up, the girl turned her head to look at him, as if daring him to try again, and he suddenly stood very still.

Reynolds cleared his throat. “So,” he began, “on the matter of payment ...”

“Fine,” the guy croaked out and threw another bag at him. “Take it. Fucking Independents. … “ he muttered, his complaints soon becoming inaudible as he backed out of the door.

Spike stared for a moment longer, then found his voice.

“Buy you fine folks a drink?” he said to Reynolds. 

“I think we'd best be leaving,” he replied, already turning towards the door with the girl and the rest of his crew; the woman with the fondness for teddy bears apparently one off them.

“I've got a business proposition for you,” Spike offered. “Malcolm Reynolds, right? I think we have something in common.”

Reynolds hesitated, torn between the promise of business and wanting to leave the bar. 

“We can talk outside,” he said at last.

 

They walked to the nearby edge of town and out towards a slightly battered-looking ship.

“Serenity?” Spike asked, but no one responded. 

When they got a bit closer, the cargo bay doors opened and a guy in an overly-cheery shirt came out to greet them. 

“Did we get paid?” he asked.

“Eventually,” replied the corporal, in a way that made Spike think the disagreement he'd witnessed in the bar was not all that unusual.

“And they chucked in a blonde man for free?” asked the guy in the shirt, amused. 

“OK,” Reynolds asked at last, “Who are you?” 

“Name’s William. Some folks know me as Spike.”

“Spike the Angel, Spike?” the shirt-guy asked, incredulous.

“No,” replied Spike firmly. “Just Spike. There’s no Angel about it.”

The guy held up his hands in mock surrender, not realising why it mattered. 

Spike shook his head in frustration, wishing that it didn't still matter at all; wasn't it just a name? Just a word?

Then he noticed Reynolds nodding to the girl next to him. She looked at Spike as she walked a long circle around him.

“Where’d the name Spike come from then?” Mal asked him after a moment. 

Spike laughed a hollow laugh, “That is a long story, my friend,” he replied.

And then the girl was at his other side, staring at him.

“Too long for one lifetime,” she said. 

Spike was surprised, but Reynolds seemed to just be waiting.

“Can't look me in the eye,” she added. “I remind you of her.”

He glared at her then to prove her wrong, but she carried on, undeterred.

“A blonde girl and her sister in the valley of the sun. From enemy to lover, to protector to ....”

“Hey!” he says, surprised and annoyed.

“Remind you of her,” she insisted. “But then everything does … even now, you're all covered with her. Believed in you … long dead but you still try to live up to it. Saved the world,” she added, reassuring, “Back when it was the only one. Saw how it ends; impossible light beneath the ground of earth-that-was. Brought back to tell the tale (though you don't) … So much time. Everything’s changed and yet nothing ever changes. Wires though your brain, soul burning your skin, died and reborn, died and reborn... but people are still the same, aren't we? Even after all these centuries …”

She moved around him as she spoke, head tilting this way and that as she looked at him, looked into him as she stepped, careful steps, light on her feet, almost like she was dancing to music no one else could hear, seeing things no one else could see. She started to remind him of someone else.

“Shouldn't worry; I'm not chosen, no kind of key … not like them. I'll remind you of a different love. Listening to the whispers of the moon and naming the stars; I'll remind you of the one before, the one who made you.” She tilted her head at him and stepped close, her voice almost a whisper. “I'll remind you of a woman … effulgent.”

Spike frowned at her and took a step backwards. “She always this disconcerting?” he said, to no one in particular.

“Pretty much, yeah.” said the hired-muscle, amused. 

Spike realised then that they were all watching with interest; for his reaction to the girl and to see what she would make of him. Suddenly it felt like some kind of test. She was vetting him, he realised. 

Well, it wasn’t the first time someone had been inside his head. And she was right of course, it wasn't the first time he'd known a deceptively delicate-looking girl who was anything but. Whether it was the Slayer, the Key or his Sire that she reminded him of most, he wasn't yet sure. But fine; either way, she could check him out. He stood and waited for her verdict. 

“Now you really do walk in worlds they couldn't imagine. Walk in the footsteps of others’ reputations, but it keeps you alone; been alone too long. Breaking a habit to look for us. Been looking for us for a while. Looking for Niska.”

There was a flurry around them then as Reynolds, his corporal and the hired muscle pulled their guns on him and everyone else got scared. He held up his hands, but she just kept talking. 

“Joined the war because of her belief in you, even knowing it would be the losing side.” She turned from him, suddenly bored or tired, he wasn't sure.

“He has a good soul,” she said to Reynolds at last. “And he values it. He knows exactly what it’s worth.”

“I'm no friend of Niska’s,” Spike added for good measure.

Slowly the guns got holstered, but no one said anything for a long moment.

“So what’s this business proposition?” Reynolds asked at last.

“We go after Niska,” replied Spike. “The ‘verse would be a better place without him in it.”

“Don’t sound too profit’ble,” noted the muscle.

“I have some money,” Spike put the emphasis on ‘some’ although in reality he had plenty; it’s easy to play the long game when you live longer than anyone else and that was something that could be profitable. “But I’ve no idea how to get to him. You, I suspect, could use some money, and I'm fairly sure you know more about Niska than I do.”

The crew shared that many wary glances with each other that Spike couldn’t follow them all.

“Say that’s true,” said Mal carefully. “What, exactly, did you have in mind?”

Spike shrugged, “Don’t know yet, that’s kinda the problem. I figured we could work something out. Or,” he added in sudden inspiration when they didn’t look convinced, “If you need to be moving on, I could buy passage on your ship for a week or two while we talk specifics.”

The glances started flicking around again. If what Spike had been told about them was true, they could likely use the coin, so what was all the concern over? He saw the corporal look at the shirt-guy with more concern than he seemed to need (unless, maybe it was him that Niska’d tortured?). Then she looked back at the Captain with the smallest of nods. She did not have an expressive face, Spike thought, but perhaps that was a sign of her agreement. 

Reynolds gave a glance around the rest of them and left a pause long enough for anyone to fill with an objection if they wanted. Then he turned back to Spike and named an exorbitant price for a passage on his ship.

Spike held his gaze for a few seconds, then simply said, “Fine.”

“You don’t even know where we’re going!” noted the shirt, voicing the others’ surprise.

Spike shrugged, “I know where I’m going,” he said as he nodded towards the ship. “Onboard Serenity. The rest’ll work itself out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired in part by this: http://weirdfactsoflife.tumblr.com/post/131279408483/find-more-facts-at-weirdfactsoflife


End file.
